Rintz to Mount Independent Bid Against Greable

Former Trustee Chris Rintz to challenge Caucus' village president candidate; challenger Patrick Livney fails to replace Joe Adams on the Caucus' slate of trustee candidates.

Next April’s Winnetka elections promise to be interesting as former trustee Chris Rintz said he will mount an independent campaign for Village President following Winnetka Caucus Council’s selection of Gene Greable for that post.    More political intrigue could also be forming in terms of the village board elections, where challenger Patrick Livney did not win enough votes to replace Joe Adams on the Caucus’ slate of candidates for Village Trustee.  Incumbents Arthur Braun and Richard Kates led the pack with 436 and 429 votes respectively. Adams, Winnetka’s Zoning Board of Appeals Chair, received 310 votes and Livney came in fourth with 216. In what was at times a raucous atmosphere Monday night at the Skokie School, Winnetka residents …

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Five Questions with a Property Tax Whiz: Dan Patlak

Patch catches up with the Cook County Board of Review Commissioner before he hosts a seminar in Northfield Township next week.

Do all those property tax numbers make your eyes squint? If you're looking for some clarity, you're in luck. Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Dan Patlak will host a property tax seminar in Northfield Township on Wednesday, Jan. 11. The event is at 7 p.m. at the Bernard Weinger Jewish Community Center, 300 Revere Dr. in Northbrook. Patch talked with Patlak to learn more about the seminars. Related: Understanding Your Cook County Property Taxes Patch: Why is it important for residents to attend the property tax seminars? Patlak: No one should pay more than their fair share of taxes. Therefore, any property owner who believes they may be overassessed owes it to themselves to attend a Board of Review Assessment Appeal Seminar to find …

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New Trier District 203 Approves $91.6M Budget

New contracts reduce projected salary costs.

The New Trier Township High School District 203 school board unanimously approved its 2011-2012 budget Monday night. The final spending plan shows the district in a better financial position than earlier projections estimated. This is because new contracts for teachers and physical plant staff include lower salaries and benefits than Associate Superintendent Donald Goers had included in the preliminary budgets. It also reduces the contingency funds included in the earlier versions of the budget. The final budget calls for $91.6 million in expenses, down from $92.7 in the tentative budget that was the subject of a public hearing in July. More than 80 percent of the expense budget goes to salaries and benefits. Budget revenues increased by $…

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A City Responds: Which Towns Pay Most in Taxes and Fees?

A new chart from Evanston tells a different story from rankings released by Park Ridge last month.

Last month, a few Patch sites posted an article, "Which Town's Residents Pay Most in Taxes and Fees?" The article was based on information provided by the city of Park Ridge, which released an annual ranking of what residents of 13 nearby towns pay annually for their municipal services. "By considering all the monies residents pay, including property taxes and fees, it attempts to create an apples-to-apples comparison and determine who gets hit hardest in the pocketbook," read the original article. But Evanston authorities point out that it wasn't an apples to apples comparison, because Evanston's taxes include funding for the library and park district, while residents of other municipalities pay additional taxes to separate library, parks…

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Making Sense of Your Property Tax

Taxpayer Advocates Call For Civic Engagement

In Day Five of our series, Patch shares what elected officials and advocates wish Cook County residents would do.

Seven years ago, Karim Chatriwala turned the key to open his version of the American Dream. The Pakistani immigrant opened up a Subway sandwich storefront in Morton Grove, a north suburb of Chicago, where he lives with his wife, two children and parents. With a wide network of friends and a place of worship right down the street, Chatriwala says the community has a lot to offer. But the business owner also said that if his property taxes do not decrease, his increasing debt might force him to move away. He estimates he pays $1,200 per month and is barely keeping afloat. So Chatriwala went to his local township assessor’s office, seeking advice and raising concern. The assessor and his deputy answered his questions, and gave him information…

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Pat Craig

11:09 am on Saturday, April 2, 2011

Township government is just a start. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204576219073867182108.html, more Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry, mining and utilities combined. Hmm. Our federal government is broke, and many state and local governments are highly likely to start …   more ›

Making Sense of Your Property Tax

Local Taxing Bodies Find Profit in Cooperatives

In Day Four of our series, Patch gives you the inside scoop on powerful organizations you may not know exist within the world of property taxes.

At lunchtime on a windy Wednesday in December, the movers and shakers of a northern Chicago suburb met at an elementary school with two attorneys and a couple pizza pies. You could call it a property tax pizza party, though the pizza came after the paperwork. It was time for the Property Tax Appeals Cooperative (PTAC) meeting, a semi-annual gathering for local taxing bodies in Niles Township that began in 1998. The cooperative, which includes about 15 school districts, public libraries, park districts and village governments, is trying to ensure that they get all the local tax money they believe they deserve. Groups such as Niles’ PTAC hire attorneys in the area to oppose businessowners’ property tax appeals. When banks, shopping malls, or…

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Making Sense of Your Property Tax

Effects of Cook County Property Taxes on Business

In Day Two, Patch unpacks the impacts of the classified tax system on businesses, through the lens of one business owner.

Joel Byron, 51, was hunched over tiny numbers in the back office of his business property, a one-window storefront in the northwest suburbs. Surrounded by stacks of papers, the small business owner thumbed his way through records of correspondence with the Cook County Tax Assessor’s Office like pages in a family photo album. “Here’s a letter from October,” he said. “Oh, wait! Here’s the one from November. … This one is mine again. … And here’s the follow-up response two weeks later.” To small business owners like Byron, the amount they owe in property taxes each year is not just one more line item in their operating budget. Due to the complex tiered system unique to Cook County, it can single-handedly cripple them. Part of the reason is …

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Making Sense of Your Property Tax

VIDEO: Understanding Your Cook County Property Taxes

In this week-long series, Patch takes Cook County property owners on an adventure into the world of taxes and their impact on you.

When your property tax bill arrives in your mailbox, chances are you’ll be squinting to figure out the difference between your property value, your assessed property value and your equalized assessed property value. After about four months of poking around the Cook County property tax system, one thing is clear here at Patch: It’s confusing, complex, and unwieldy, so much so that there’s not one particular kink in the system that we can point our fingers at to say, “aha, here’s the problem!” And it’s not just us. Ask elected officials, the county assessor’s spokesperson, the local township assessors, and they all agree it's too complex. As Robert Porter, a former township supervisor, put it: “It’s like a car slamming into a wall at 60 mph…

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Laurie Hellmer

9:35 pm on Friday, April 1, 2011

Great video. Good work.   more ›

Northfield Trustees Vote to Stay Below Tax Cap

During first session as home-ruled community, Village Board discusses property taxes, new ownership at Seul's, year-end financial health.

Northfield trustees demonstrated their commitment not to raise property taxes above the state tax cap at Monday's Village Board meeting, although this is now within the village's power as a home-ruled municipality. The board voted on the finance department's recommended 2010 tax levy of $3.5 million, which is 3.4 percent greater than the 2009 extended levy.  In accordance with the tax cap, the proposed increase includes a 2.7 percent rise attributed to inflation and a 0.7 percent uptick attributed to estimated new properties, such as annexations or new construction. However, Cook County adds a 3 percent collection-loss factor to all levies, and the additional 3 percent would likely cause the board to violate its recently adopted tax cap …

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